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Take chances. Abandon all the rules. Ditch the recipe. Color outside the lines.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Tattoo Cliff Notes

Some people in church get uneasy when you start talking
about tattoos. I think some of that
comes from the fact that in the past, those with tattoos were the rough ones,
the bad apples, and the trouble makers.
Church people gasp at people who weave into their congregations covered
in tattoos, “You’ve defiled your body!” Surprise,
surprise, I am not one of those people. I have tattoos that I love. They are a part of me, an expression of who I
am. They are the cliff notes of my
story, the Ebeneezer's of my journey.
They spark conversations with strangers that lead to the discovery that
not all Christians are judgmental and stiff-necked. Johnny Depp put it so well when he said, “My
body is my journal and tattoos are my story.”
This is the tattoo cliff notes version of my story.

JJ- A friend lost.

The first tattoo I ever got was this little heart with “JJ”
in it. It was one of those typical first
tattoos, but it meant something deeper to me.
JJ was one of the most amazing women I have ever known. She knew me better than anyone and was one of
the few people I would let call me out on my junk. She always pushed me to be the best version of
myself. I remember that day when I told
her that I wasn’t going to go to college.
The very next day she had a stack of college applications set in front
of me, “Jessica, you are going to college!”
She was amazing. I was on a mission’s
trip in Mexico when I got the news of her death. I was broken.
More broken than I had been in a long time.

For a long time I felt guilty that I wasn’t there by her
side that night, but I know now that I was right where she would have wanted me
to be. I wrote a memorial for her and we
dedicated the pathway to the kindergarten we were working on that week to
her. Her death made me feel again.

In those first weeks of my sobriety, she was my
motivation. I just really wanted her to
be proud of me.

Endure- “to support adverse force or influence of any kind; suffer
without yielding; suffer patiently; to have or gain continued or lasting
acknowledgment or recognition, as of worth, merit or greatness.”

The next tattoo I got was during my sophomore year of
college. I was in the midst of my sobriety
journey and at the center of a relational hurricane. People that I loved were falling apart and I
was in the middle of it all. I had cut
ties with home and my church there as anger and bitterness began to consume my
thoughts and plague my nights with sleeplessness.

I was going to therapy at the time for my plethora of
issues. After an outburst of anger and an
exclamation of my desire to give up, Doc asked me, “Do you know what the word ‘Endure’
means?” As she reached for a tattered
book on her shelf I replied with a shrug, “to survive, I guess.” She licked her fingers and flipped through
some of the yellowed pages then read aloud, “to support adverse force or
influence of any kind; suffer without yielding; suffer patiently; to have or
gain continued or lasting acknowledgment or recognition, as of worth, merit or
greatness.” She looked up and me with
kind eyes, “Jess, enduring is about more than just surviving, it is about
thriving. Life will make you
suffer. It will forcefully influence you
with its anger and brokenness. Enduring
isn’t just about making it out alive; Enduring is about realizing how much you
are really worth and letting that become your unyielding motivation to thrive!”

The next day I used my money that was supposed to be for
books to buy a tattoo, the Chinese symbol for endure on my right shoulder. Even though it resulted in a (deserved)
tongue lashing from my mother, it has since served as a reminder that endurance
is about more than just getting to the finish line.

Trust- “stand by your words”

A year and a half passed after my enlightenment on
endurance. I grew strong and healthy as
I began to wade into the deeper waters of what grace could do. There were still parts of my heart that I had
walls built around as the sting of open wounds still made me tense up. Someone walked into my life that forced me to
face those walls and consider what I was missing by not being brave enough to
tear them down. I had forgotten what it
was like to be able to trust anyone as all those who had been granted that
privilege had utterly abused it. This
person taught me what it really meant to be able to trust someone.

Soon my ability to trust led to discovering the need for me
to be someone that could be trusted. I
was a really REALLY good conman. I could
lie pretty well and convince most everyone of what I wanted them to believe
about me, all while wearing the mask of being a really good person. This was beneficial when I lived a life on
the dark side but as an increasing desire to do good grew within me, the cons
left me feeling empty.

I made a decision to embrace honesty in the same way I do most
things… radically. I decided that I was
going to tell the truth about everything all the time. No finding loopholes, not mincing words, just
pure unadulterated honesty. This caused
quite a few people to walk out of my life as the dirtiness of who I really was
came to light. Still, I found freedom in
honesty.

I decided that I wanted a tattoo to mark the new milestone
in my life and thought, once again of a Chinese symbol to match my “Endure”
memorial. I found the Chinese symbol for
“trust” and upon further research, discovered that, translated literally, it
means “stand by your words.” I was soon
in the tattoo chair as the whir of machine, smell of antiseptic, and squeeze
of the hand from the person I trusted most, soothed me into rest.

Destemido- Live Fearless

Last, but most certainly not least, my most recent
tattoo. Five years into sobriety and
deep into the depths of grace, I have regained some old friends and made so
many new ones. My two best friends on
this planet, have become my spaces of safety and beacons of grace in my life
when I have needed it most.

Carolina and I have only known each other for a little over
a year but I feel like I have known her my whole life. She is Brazilian and she tries to teach me Portuguese
while laughing at my accent. That’s ok, don’t
tell her but sometimes I laugh at her accent too! ;) When I told her about wanting to get a new
tattoo to mark my newest pursuit of a life free from fear she suggested I get
it in Portuguese. I couldn’t have agreed
more! Her friendship is one of the
things that keeps me brave, keeps me striving to escape fear, so to have it
tattooed in her language couldn’t have been more perfect.

It was about six months ago now that I got “Destemido”
etched across my wrist while Carolina and Briana stood by with smiles of
support. It will forever be a memory I
treasure and an added reminder that perfect love drives out fear.

Well, there you have it, my story in tattoos! Now you know why I love them so much, each
one marks a part of my life that I never want to forget. There will be more to come as I cross new
bridges along my journey of grace. I can’t
wait to see what new wonders and joys there are for me to take in on the other
side of them!